There are many devices for preparing hot food products such as fried fish, French fried potatoes, potato chips, chicken fingers, and the like. For example, there has been provided a basket assembly for an apparatus for cooking and dispensing hot food products. The assembly may be incorporated into a vending machine and includes a carrousel container. The carrousel container receives food product and rotates about a vertical axis. The food product is held by by a receptacle within the carrousel container and is progressively cooked in a hot liquid such as water or oil. Once food product is cooked, the assembly is raised and food product is discharged. The time taken in order to cook a food product with known devices may also be too long to be of practical value and faster serving processes may deteriorate the cooking oil and adversely affect the food product.
The use of baskets with open vat fryers shortens the life of oil due to aeration, salting, residual particles in oil, hot spots and scorching on elements. The foregoing results in poor quality of food, higher oil absorption in product and more frequent oil changes.
There are known devices that use an enclosed kitchen, an air filter system and pre-timed basket lift for use in non-ventilated zones. Other devices use a conveyor type system. These devices require a high frequency of maintenance and the quality of the finished product is inconsistent. They also cannot provide a mixed serving of product (fries & nuggets) within an acceptable time-frame to the customer. These devices are labor intensive to operate and maintain and do not provide a diagnostic analysis for trouble shooting, oil, filter changes, etc. and remote control of all facets of the appliance. Also, these devices do not have the design capabilities for converting to a vending type dispensing machine.
Conventional open-vat fryers are used in most fast-food operations. This known technology consists of a rectangular tank with a heating element at the bottom. There are two baskets used to manually load and unload product. In order to meet peak demand, an optimum oil capacity to power input ratio must be met. For example, a high-production fryer will contain 30 lbs of shortening with an input of 16 kW. This will produce approximately 60 lbs. of fries or 240 (4 oz.) portions per hour. The by-products of this type of frying includes high-energy costs, pollutant exhaust, frequent oil changes, labor intensive operations high capital for equipment, high insurance cost etc.